


1721

by Ithika



Series: Remorseless [9]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-09
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-05-12 19:32:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5677993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ithika/pseuds/Ithika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>March, 1721. After a lengthy imprisonment, notorious pirate Captain Charles Vane, a true monster of the Spanish Main, is put to death for his crimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1721

> ❡ _**“C** harles, I shan’t trust you aboard my ship, unless I carry you a prisoner;    
>                         for I shall have you plotting with my men, knock me on the head  
>                         and run away with my ship a pirating **.”**_

**T** hose had been the words that sealed his fate - the disdain of a former ally, yet another craven wretch who’d forsaken all that he was to take the crown’s worthless pardon. Another man willing to roll over and _beg_ for the right to live. 

 **A** t first, all there had been was rage. The white-hot flames of it were comforting, in their way - familiar, constant. But even he could not cling to anger forever. Over the days, weeks, months of cold, relentless stone, mouldy bread and stale water, his cage had started to constrict. Stone, stone, stone - bearing down on him from all directions; cloying, suffocating. It conspired to produce cracks in the armour of his rage, and slowly - _slowly_ , for he was forged of iron and wrath - the fingers of fear began to sneak in through the gaps.

 **A** man caged is not so dangerous, the guards soon learned. At first they had feared him - Charles Vane, scourge of the sea. A killer, remorseless. Proud. The way he railed against his capture was unpredictable as it was enduring - he could be kind, one guard learned too late. Beguiling. The boy’s mistake paid for in blood, but the cage stuck, and Vane in it. It was long months since then, and if they thought of him at all it was not with fear - just another dead man awaiting the noose.

 **E** xcept they had made him wait so very _long_.

 **H** e found ways, if not to pass the time, then to mark it. A rock, harder than the crumbling limestone wall, helped him mark the days. It took him half a day to make a nice, clean line - he had 672 marks. Some days he couldn’t bring himself to make a mark, others he forgot, lost in attempts to see anything from his tiny cell window. Some days he tried to maintain his strength, futile though it was; malnutrition and hunger robbed him of much. Slowly, muscles that had not known softness since he was a boy lost their shape and power. It was maddening, the feeling of helplessness that grew every day he languished in this purgatory without end.

 **W** orst of all was the part of him he’d left behind.

 **I** t had just been an ordinary hunt. The kind that took a month, maybe, and then he’d be back in her arms. He knew it had been more days than he’d made marks on the wall - a lot more.

 **T** he storm had been monstrous. A terrifying, shrieking squall - waves rearing high as the main. He revisited that night often in his dreams, the wave that broke the ship apart, the screams of his brothers as they were washed away; he’d awaken on the cold stone floor, heart pounding, trembling in a cold sweat.

 **B** ut even those were better than the knowledge that she would never learn his fate. At least, not until it was over - doubtless the news of the execution of Charles Vane would be carried far and wide, even as the body of the beast would be displayed until he was naught but bleached and brittle bones.

* * *

**"D** oes the defence call any witnesses?” He remembers the sack of Charleston then - the strength and fury he’d known in his younger days, when Nassau had many strong and fearless sons and daughters, eager to defend her liberty. He remembers gunpowder and steel, fire and blood. He says nothing.

 **T** he sun feels good on his back, though after so long in the dark the brightness hurts his eyes. Despite the best efforts of his jailers, he still cuts a powerful figure, standing tall and defiant on the stage.

 **"D** oes the defence call witnesses?” The portly little man repeats, irritation written in the frown that pulls at his lips, the way his fingers twitch and fidget on the page. Charles only sneers at him for a moment before returning his gaze to the sky, rolling his shoulders, attempting to ignore the cold weight of the shackles at his wrists and ankles. They are not so loose as that day in Charleston - no room to swing a sword this time, if he had the strength to swing one - though it would be good to die with steel in his hands.

“Does the defence -”

 _"Fuck_ you.”

 

 ** ** **T****** he crowd gasps as one - somewhere a pampered lady titters weakly, and children grin, but he doesn’t look at them. There is no rescue coming for him, he knows. Few enough pirates remain to resist the indefatigable navy, and of those few there were none that would call him friend. None either that would see the value in the risk of rescue - they had become the dying thing. Still, there was fear there, in the eyes of his witnesses, he could see it when he looked into their eyes. They way they refused to meet his for overlong, the way they cowered and huddled together. “ _See Charles Vane, the remorseless villain! Look upon the man who made himself a beast. See how his cunning was not enough to thwart righteous justice!”_

 ** **H**** is reverie is interrupted by guards that come to tower over him, blocking the light of the sun where he had been forced to sit, and he turns to look at them. Their expressions are angry, perhaps cruel - though give him a knife, give him a ship and he would show those boys what anger and cruelty is. He sneers at them as they pull him roughly to his feet, resisting the movements they force with what strength he has - dishearteningly little, but it is enough to make their job harder, and at least that is something.

 

 **W** hen they shove him towards the gallows, he does not resist - he would not be dragged or lead like some whipped cur, would not give _them_ the satisfaction of showing his fear. But it is with him, in him, coiled tight in his empty belly, dry on the back of his parched tongue. Still, his step does not falter when he sees the noose, swinging slightly in the noon breeze. And that breeze! The blessed scent of salt water is upon it, and for a moment, just a _moment_ he is on a deck once more, the sun taking the chill from that breeze. He is strong and vital again, just for that second with the wind.

 **T** he myth crumbles and blows away with his first step on a creaking wooden step that is solid, unmoving - there is no roll to it, no life. Even now, he grips his fear with all his fury - his back is straight, jaw set. He sees a flash of familiar beauty as they pull the noose over his head - but it could not be her, and when he looks again, she is gone, was never there - safe and far from this awful place. There is that, at least.

 **"D** o you repent?”

He only smiles, that thin-lipped, hard smile that he’d worn so often as he ended who stood against him. Of course, he wouldn’t change a thing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on OftheRanger at tumblr. Based on historic accounts of the capture and execution of Charles Vane. I'm sorry? But also I'm pretty proud of this.


End file.
